After doubling back twice, they finally found what they were looking for. As they pulled up in front of the tiny auto parts store with its hand-painted signs and rusted bars across its windows, Finney looked at Parker and said, “Keep it running.”

Climbing out of the car, Finney spotted an old man in a T-shirt and sandals sitting in a lawn chair propped up against the front of the building. When the old man smiled, he showed a row of gold teeth.

Finney approached him and asked a question about the road into Querétaro. When the old man gave him the predetermined response, Finney then asked him if he had a spare tire that would fit their car. The old man raised himself from the wobbly lawn chair and motioned for Finney to follow him inside.

Harvath and Parker watched from the car. This wasn’t part of the agreement, and neither of them liked it, but they had little choice but to sit and wait.

Moments later, Finney re-emerged with what they assumed was their tire wrapped in a large garbage bag. The old man came around the back of the car and knocked twice with his gnarled knuckles on the trunk. Parker depressed the trunk release, and Finney carefully laid the tire inside.

Ten minutes later, they pulled the car off to the side of the road and got out. Popping the trunk, they removed the plastic bag from around the “spare tire.” Duct-taped inside the tire was everything Harvath had asked for. The Troll had charged them dearly for the weapons, but seeing as how they had no sources in Mexico and Harvath couldn’t tap any of his D. C. connections for fear the president would find out what he was up to, they’d had little choice but to agree to buy what they needed from the Troll and his extensive network.

Harvath was glad to have the weapons. If Ronaldo Palmera was as dangerous as everyone said he was, they were going to need them.

Though Palmera could have lived anywhere in Querétaro, he preferred the hardscrabble El Tepe neighborhood where people minded their own business and didn’t ask a lot of questions.

He kept an unassuming two-story house not far from the main market square. In the rear was a patio of sorts where he had planted an extensive garden, the highlight of which was neat rows of dwarf fruit trees.

Gardening was a pastime Palmera had come to late in life and it had become a reliable way to soothe his nerves and take his mind off all he had seen and all he had done.

To represent the five pillars of Islam, he had planted five different types of trees: apple for the testimony of faith; apricot for the ritual of daily prayer; cherry for the obligatory almsgiving; nectarine for fasting, and peach for the pilgrimage to Mecca -a journey Palmera had yet to undertake.

As he tended to each type of tree, he was reminded of his commitment to Allah and focused his mind on what that particular pillar of Islam meant to him. In the midst of an all-too-secular world, Palmera’s garden was his sanctuary, his earthly Paradise. It was also the weakest link in the defense of his home.

Early on, Harvath had abandoned the idea of snatching Palmera off the street-too many witnesses and too many things that could go wrong. Their best chance was to take him at his house.

From what the intel revealed, Palmera lived alone and didn’t travel with any bodyguards-his reputation being all the protection he needed. The one thing that Harvath was worried about, though, was how extensively Palmera had the neighborhood wired. Spreading your money around to local charities, churches, and families in need was a great way to purchase loyalty and eyeballs that would alert you to any indication someone had come looking for you.

In the end, there simply was no way for Harvath and his team to know. Therefore, they had to adopt the attitude that every single person within a four-block radius of Palmera’s house was on his payroll and ready to drop a dime at a moment’s notice. Trying to sneak into the neighborhood was out of the question. They would have to go in bold as brass.

And that’s exactly what they did.

They parked the rental car a block away from Palmera’s house and paid a couple of shopkeepers a hundred bucks apiece to keep an eye on it. Though Finney spoke very little Spanish, it was clear what would happen to the shopkeepers if they returned and something had happened to their vehicle.

He took up his position behind Harvath and Parker and they walked to the corner and turned onto Palmera’s street. Harvath talked animatedly and pointed at different buildings, a roll of blueprints under his arm.

Three-quarters of the way down the block, Harvath spotted the narrow gangway that led to the rear of Palmera’s house, and he stopped. Removing the blueprints from underneath his arm, he unrolled them across the hood of a parked car and appeared to study them intently. Taking a small digital camera from his pocket, he handed it to Parker and ordered him to start taking pictures.

The neighborhood people had no idea who the man with the blueprints was, but based on the size of his bodyguard he had to be somebody very important. If he was visiting El Tepe, that could only mean one thing-redevelopment. And redevelopment meant money, lots of money.

They watched as the man studied his plans and his assistant took photographs of their shops and buildings, while the dutiful bodyguard stood by, ready to discourage any unbidden approach.

Eager to look worthy of the businessman’s interest in their neighborhood, several of the shopkeepers along the street shuffled inside to get brooms and began sweeping off their sidewalks.

Harvath continued to gesture, using his pen to point out how the power cables entered several different structures. Satisfied that they had garnered the right kind of attention, Harvath studied his blueprints for a few minutes more, then pointed at the gangway just ahead of them. Tucking the drawings for Tim Finney’s new riding arena at Elk Mountain under his arm, he began walking. This would be one of the most dangerous moments of their entry plan.

Tom Morgan had covertly piggybacked onto an NSA satellite that allowed him to monitor everything that was going on from back in Colorado. As of this moment, Ronaldo Palmera’s home was empty. If they were going to get inside, now was the time to do it.

Receiving the “all clear” over his earpiece, Ron Parker relayed the message to Harvath, and they casually turned into the narrow gangway. It was strewn with garbage and smelled like urine. Harvath had smelled worse.

He ignored the smell and even a rat that looked as if it could have been a contender at Churchill Downs and made his way to the end of the passageway.

He had his lockpick gun halfway out of his pocket when he arrived at a heavy wooden door laced with black iron bands and realized they’d have to think of something else. The door looked as if it had been pulled from a medieval castle or fortified Spanish mission, and its thick iron lock was just as forbidding. They’d have to go over the high stone wall.

Fortunately, they were fairly well concealed from the street, and Harvath got right to work.

Taking two steps backward, he counted to three and then leaped for the top of the wall. He latched on and gave a silent thanks that it wasn’t capped with broken glass-a common security measure in third world countries. He pulled himself up, swung his legs over, and dropped into the garden below.

As he did, he heard something that turned his blood to ice.